“They treat us like we aren’t even human,”- Parchman prison inmate

Jay-Z and Yo Gotti are honoring their promise to inmates at several Mississippi prisons who are being exposed to deplorable and inhuman conditions by assisting the inmates in filing a law suit against the prison officials.

According to TMZ, on Tuesday (Jan. 14) Team Roc, the philanthropic branch of Roc Nation, and its high-powered attorney, Alex Spiro, filed a lawsuit in federal court on behalf of the prisoners after a spike in deadly violence at several Mississippi state prisons.

“Individuals held in Mississippi’s prisons are dying because Mississippi has failed to fund its prisons, resulting in prisons where violence reigns because prisons are understaffed,” the lawsuit alleges.

In the court documents obtained by the gossip site, the lawsuit states that the issues are due to the Mississippi prison system being “chronically understaffed” and also “dramatically underfunded”, with the budget being reduced by tens of millions each year. The lawsuit goes onto state that the conditions of the prison, coupled with the overworked and underpaid staff is what has led to the inhumane, volatile and dangerous conditions that those imprisoned face daily.https://www.instagram.com/p/B7Fdx-AB39o/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link“Walter Gates, an inmate of Unit 29E at Parchman, was stabbed multiple times the night of New Year’s Eve and pronounced dead just after midnight,” attorneys write in the lawsuit. “Roosevelt Holliman was stabbed to death in a fight the next day. And Denorris Howell, an inmate of Unit 291 at Parchman was stabbed multiple times and pronounced dead the day after that.”

The documents also point out that Parchman doesn’t have adequate space to house the inmates with more than six men being confined to a single cell, most of which have no mattresses to sleep on or the mattresses are covered in black mold and raw sewage that spilled on the floor.

“In Parchman, the units are subject to flooding. Black mold festers. Rats and mice infest the prison. Units lack running water and electricity for days at a time,” attorneys wrote in the lawsuit.

As of press time Parchman nor the Mississippi prison systems have responded to the lawsuit, but many civil rights organizations are calling out prison officials for violating the Eighth Amendment, which bans cruel and unusual punishment.

The lawsuit seeks damages for the inmates, and an order forcing Mississippi’s Dept. of Corrections to lay out a plan to address all the issues, especially their plans to increase staff and clean up the sewage.